In Comes a Rooster
by Dr. Fluffmuffin
Summary: Though time passes, Zane still wonders about his place in the world.
1. Chapter 1

**So I had a poll ten months ago about which character I should write about. This is what became of that. I do not own Ninjago.**

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There is no room for imagination, in Zane's logical mind, which is why he never distracted himself with wistful daydreams or flying fantasies. He'd either live in the moment, or he'd clear his mind entirely. Imagination is a human gift, something he does not share.

At least, that's what he used to think. Lately, Zane is terribly distracted all the time. His mind is clouded with imaginings of all sorts, keeping him from focusing on the present.

He hopes he's doing it right; Jay and Cole are always telling him to use his imagination, but it's hard to comprehend something like that when he simply isn't built with a flight of fancy. He just focuses on a world, different and the same as his own, and he pictures himself there. Then, Zane supposes, he imagines.

In most daydreams, Zane likens himself to a bird, because he likes birds. He thinks he'd make a good one. Sometimes, he's a falcon, peregrine, racing winds and capturing the skies high over a distant earth. Other times, he is a simple songbird, flitting fast through green trees. And still other times, he is a vulture, sometimes black, sometimes turkey, weaving through the air with a massive pair of wings, more looming than flying.

One might think these rampant daydreams concerning for someone with a job that requires attentiveness, but no one has really noticed the change in Zane. The Overlord's defeat has brought the team an impromptu vacation—or rather, a period of time where nothing bad happens.

They spend it docked in an offshoot of the Wailing Alps, a series of cliffs that veer high over an ancient stream that roars. The cliffs are covered in trees and underbrush that's easy to get lost in if one isn't careful, and it's far, but not too far from a local mountain town, where they get all their groceries.

Not much has happened here, and the ninja don't know what to do with themselves. Kai daydreams of glory, the good old days that never really existed; Wu talks of opening a school. Their days are spent sometimes together, but mostly separately as they find new and often quiet ways to entertain themselves.

Zane spends his mornings walking a trail up the side of these massive cliffs, reaching a place known locally as Wally's Peak, named after a boy who fell asleep on a rock at the top and landed an unfortunate death at the bottom. Zane likes to sit on those rocks, because the entire valley opens beneath it, and he can observe all his favorite things.

Like birds. Zane likes seeing the birds.

It's been three months since Dr. Julien passed, and Zane doesn't know what to do with himself. He never mourned his father; he never got the chance. Now he does, but something about grief and mourning seems so animal, human too, both which Zane is not.

So, he imagines himself as a bird, flying through a landscape that is as much his as he is a part of it. A bird, no matter what sort, fits into the landscape like a puzzle, every piece snapping perfectly into place.

Zane in the present does not fit. He's not a puzzle piece. If he had to imagine, he'd call himself a gear.

* * *

It is mid-morning on a warm summer day, and Zane sits at the top of Wally's Peak, upon a boulder that flattens out just wide enough for his form. His eyes are closed and he's barefoot, sitting and soaking up the sun, as Jay would say. He's been here since dawn, tracking two red tailed hawks and observing scenery. He does this every day, though he's not sure why. He guesses that he merely just likes being here, and he does. Here, he can get away from himself and his father. Here, he can imagine himself a bird and almost believe it.

The wind blows strong and wild, enough that Zane thinks if he stepped right off the edge of the cliff, arms open, he'd go soaring. The winds would pick up, he'd feel a jerk, legs swinging, and he'd fly.

_But that is not possible_, Zane's common sense reminds him, _Wally's Peak is named for a reason._

It is, Zane nods, though he thinks that his fall would be different from the boy's. A boy of metal and wire would not land the same as one of flesh and bone. The mountain town found the boy eight years after the fact, when he was nothing but a tattered purple sweater and a jawbone fractured over a floor of granite.

Zane would be found differently. In fact, he debates if he would even die at all.

"I wonder," he says, speaking amiably to two cardinals that flit through the deep green cedars around him, "what would happen if I lay here for the next one hundred years."

He can see it now, eyes closed. The moss and overgrowth that shrouds this stone top would grow around and through him, slowly pulling apart the fine work of Dr. Julien by the plate; shed leaves and needles would fall through the cracks, filling up his insides until he is well enough for a small pack rat or mole to live in. Then other plants will slowly take him over, fed through the soil that fills his gears, and blooms of clover will sprout behind his empty blue eyes.

Zane smiles at this image. He likes clover.

But something bothers him about his daydream. In it, suddenly, a boy is next to him. He pictures him as looking somewhat like Lloyd. After a hundred years, the boy is gone, and the world is lucky to find a fragment of bone here or there, nothing but jagged remains after being picked over by wildlife. Zane is still there, still recognizable, because for as hard as he imagines, Zane is not a part of this landscape.

He is a part of no place. He was a part of Dr. Julien, but Dr. Julien is dead and gone and Zane has no part left in this world; no place, not for Zane.

Frowning at the string of intrusive thoughts, Zane opens his eyes and stares out at the open valley. From his perch, he sees the nest of the red tails. An adult and two juveniles, their movements are recorded in a spiral notebook Zane picked up from the local general store. Zane would like to draw them, had he the skill, but artistry is a uniquely human trait, something, like many things, Zane is not.

"I don't suppose you'd be interested," Zane tells the cardinals, giving them his best smile, "I'm sure you'd create some interesting portraits."

They pay him no mind, used to his presence by this point. Instead, they chase each other through wiry branches, chirping high and loud.

"Though I don't think you'd wish to depict a predator," Zane continues, watching the clouds move across the sky, "That would be like if I painted a picture of the Overlord."

Or Skullkin, or Serpentine, or Garmadon. Of course, Zane cannot draw. He simply isn't built for that.

A sad feeling, one he's felt a lot recently, overwhelms him, and Zane drops his eyes to the rock he sits on, closing off the rest of the world indefinitely. The wind blows, teasing his hair.

He is sad, awfully lonely. It reminds him of the years before he found the ninja, when he'd wander from town to town, trying but never quite finding a place for himself. It makes sense in hindsight; there wasn't one.

Once he had the ninja, those feelings went away. Now, they're back, and Zane can't figure out why.

After a while, he forgets his shoes and walks the trail home, having seen enough for one day. He watches a vulture fly above him for some of the way, floating at the speed of passing clouds.

Even from the cliff, it's no larger than a speck.

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**Updates for this will be patchy for now. This is one of those stories that I've written and rewritten several times, but I hope you'll enjoy it.**

**Thank you for reading!**


	2. Chapter 2

"How do you 'sort of' lose your shoes, Zane?"

The Bounty is crowded and cranky on the afternoon Zane returns. The ninja are tired of life here, antsy with nothing to do. There was a certain thrill that came with battling evil that they've come to miss; Zane is familiar with it, and in a personal way, he misses it, too.

Now, he sits cross-legged on the floor, playing cards with Cole while the rest of the team struggles to play video games in an area not suited for such technology, which grows more advanced by the day.

Jay asked the question, but Kai does the most interrogating, always worried about his team.

"It's simple," Zane says, drawing a card and rearranging his hand, "first you got them, then you don't."

"So what?" Kai cries out and Jay laughs as something or someone dies on screen, "You forgot them?"

"Sure," says Zane, shifting as he feels those ugly feelings of loneliness creeping slowly up his gut (he hates them, especially when they ruin time spent in the company of his family).

Cole raises an eyebrow. "Sure?"

"It is an affirmative answer."

They drop the subject. They're trying to tease, but Zane just isn't having it today, or any other day. He is not what he used to be, whatever he was, and that saddens him.

"Zane."

Cole speaks, and Zane realizes he's been staring too long at his cards and lays another one down. But Cole isn't playing the game anymore; he's looking at Zane.

"You doing alright?" he asks, quiet and personal.

It's a heart to heart kind of question, and Zane remembers quite forcefully that he does not have a heart like Cole's. He wishes he could shut his thoughts off entirely, so they'd stop invading his relationships.

"Yes," he replies, voice smooth—like butter, he thinks.

Or perhaps he thinks wrong, because Cole keeps talking.

"We're here if you need to talk," he says, "You've been distant lately."

Kai yells as his avatar gets creamed on screen, and Zane pretends he doesn't hear Cole's last statement as he draws another card.

"I appreciate that," he replies, hoping Cole understands the tone enough to butt out.

The truth is, Zane doesn't want to talk to anybody about his thoughts. He doesn't even want to talk to himself about his thoughts, which is why he imagines things instead, why he misses the battles and menaces that would distract him. It's hard to explain to someone like Cole or the ninja what he's feeling; the emptiness, the loneliness, the simple idea that he doesn't have a place here is an overwhelming feeling that invades every presence of his life like a bad fungus. The questions, "What am I? How do I fit into this world, among people and faces who are not like me?" pass through his head daily, now. He can't enjoy himself anymore; happiness comes with the foreboding promise of negative emotions returning.

He hates it, and he doesn't want to talk about it.

He goes to bed that night and lies awake staring at Kai's bunk. All around him are signs of life: snoring; sniffing; shifting. When Zane sleeps, he does so quietly, stiff as a board. Different.

_What am I?_ he thinks, _I don't belong here._

Tonight, he imagines himself a vulture—turkey this time, because he loves their pink heads—floating far away from his heavy, complicated existence, nothing but a thin dash of black lost in an endless blue sky.

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**This story isn't going to be as plot focused as some of the other stories I write.**

**I hope you enjoyed. Thank you for reading!**


	3. Chapter 3

When Zane meets her, he is distracted.

Wu's Academy has taken off and thrived on the ten or so students willing to put up with five teachers who are uncoordinated at best. With the new environment and way of life, Zane puts all his focus into teaching—or rather, handling—his students; it distracts from the ugly thoughts without compromising his position by daydreaming.

When Zane meets her, his feelings are in the back of his mind, where he can't see them. Seeing her simultaneously calls them forward and disbands them entirely. Here is a bot, he thinks, someone just like him. Surely she is as he is; surely, they are the same.

When Zane meets her, he ecstatic, overjoyed, completely and hopelessly flustered.

"What does _Zane_ stand for?" Pixal inquires, innocent to the profound effect her presence has on Zane's entire worldview.

"I—I—" says Zane, searching for words that are scattering from his thoughts in all directions, "I stand for peace, and freedom, courage—"

"She means your name, tin head." The ninja are snickering.

Zane falls silent, thinking. Zane. Zane. _Zane._ That can mean many things. Zealous And Nifty Exponent? Zesty Aromatic Ninja Eccentricity? No, that's stupid.

"I guess…I'm just Zane."

Pixal stands before him, neutral in face and tone. She's the answer to all Zane's questions. Zane can't recall them at the moment, but the relief he feels at the sight of her immobilizes him.

Their meeting is only a second, but it stretches to eternity. The world shrinks before Zane's eyes, leaving only Pixal—a bot like him. For a moment, he isn't different; he is not an alien in a world of cells and blood. He and Pixal are the same; everyone else is different.

Though Zane generally doesn't believe in fate, he swears something sparks through his heart when Pixal puts her hand against his chest.

"What powers you?" she says.

She's genuinely curious, unaware of the spell she cast. Zane is flabbergasted, downright uncoordinated in his response, wanting to say a million things, none of them the answer to her question.

For now, he settles with, "I don't know," blurted out after a series of graceless stutters. Remarkable.

She isn't impressed, though the fact that she's kept the same expression since she arrived suggests she doesn't get impressed by much of anything. Their meeting is a second that stretches into eternity, but it is still a second. She leads the students one way, and Zane stares dumbly afterwards, taken.

* * *

On the circus train, Pixal works with meticulous hands, every action carefully calculated. She knows exactly where to go and what to do, plotting her next move as she works on her current one. Zane sits with what's no doubt a silly smile on his face, mesmerized.

He's unsure of the feeling he gets when he looks at her. It's an odd thing, like a bubble in his chest that floats around, swelling and shrinking, rising and falling. Is it eros, like he sees when Jay looks at Nya, or is it simply joy and relief in knowing that he isn't one of a kind, anymore?

All he knows is that the bubble glitters, and that either way, he cares for Pixal. He wants to be her friend, for perhaps he can spare her from the turmoil of being one of a kind. Perhaps he can spare her the years of loneliness, the aching, empty feeling one gets at looking over a cliff and knowing the valley below could never be yours.

"Pixal?" he tries, hoping something will happen; everything will make sense if he just talks to her.

"Yes?"

She doesn't look up from her work. Completely robotic.

"You—you're very good."

"I am programmed to be no less than the best," replies she, moving on at the speed of light.

_She talks like that a lot,_ Zane notes. It's always someone else's work: her behavior; her talents. Zane must admit he's never thought that of himself. Though everything about him is the work of someone else's hands, Zane likes to think his thoughts are his own. He never questioned otherwise.

A worry niggles at his gut as he wonders if he and Pixal are not as similar as he hoped, but he dispels it with a shake of his head. The first step towards answering his questions is making sure that he and Pixal are friends, first.

"Pixal?" he says.

"Yes?"

A beat. He needs to fill the silence, but Zane is not like her; he has no idea what his next move is. The moment stretches long, and in desperation, Zane blurts, "Do you like birds?"

She stops, looks at him in question. "Birds are a fine class of the animal kingdom."

She leaves it at that, and after a second where they stare at each other, she goes back to work. Zane wants her to continue, but she hasn't anything else to share.

He wonders if she has any favorites, if her programming allows her to think in such a way. She is talented; she is unique. But there's a difference between the two of them, a functional kind that Zane knows isn't as big as it seems presently.

He wants to tell her how important she is, how much she means to him, despite knowing her for the length of a day, at most.

He does, partly. He says, "Thank you for repairing me. I guess and old nindroid like myself is no match for the newer models."

It's a little thing that hardly expresses the other thanks he holds behind closed lips, but it doesn't matter in the end, because she brushes off the thanks, contributing her kindness to programming and nothing more.

It's an oddly sad thing to witness. If this is what she—they—are doomed to be, Zane doesn't know if it's worth it.

His gaze has fallen sideways, and he's distracted and unaware when Pixal puts a hand to his open heart in a caprice of curiosity. His entire body seizes at the action, and Zane gasps in surprise.

Pixal's hand jerks back, and she goes with it, face flickering. The action compels Zane to ground himself, fix this.

"I am sorry," Pixal crawls, folding her hands in shame, "I caused you pain. I was curious to understand why you are so different."

Zane shakes his head, pushing the pain away as he leans forward. Taking her hands, he says, "We are all different, but I don't feel so different around you."

They are the same. He's sure of it, now.

But she pulls away, saying, "I am not different. I am P.I.X.A.L, the Primary Interactive X-ternal Assistant Lifeform, and your repairs are complete."

She leaves him alone in the corner to wallow, retreating like a sand crab back into her hole. The ugly feeling surges again, and Zane is left…off-put. This is not what he hoped to get out of a conversation with Pixal, but it seems at least an improvement of what he was feeling before.

She is Pixal, a bot, a person like him.

Though saddened, Zane is no less determined. She's given him purpose, to make sense of his existence, as nonsensical as it is. Then, perhaps, he'll be at peace again.

For now, as the train rolls onwards, he imagines himself back at Wally's Peak, this time walking with Pixal at his side. At the top, the rocks are now wide enough for two bots to sit on, tumbled like they've always been that way.

There, they sit, and Zane shows her the red tails. He tells her of his favorite birds, of peregrines and catbirds and the blue-winged teal. When he's finished, she shares her favorites, which are whatever she wants.

Anything she can think of.


End file.
